Trumpet / Synthesizer

Terence Blanchard

(1962–)

New Orleans, LA, United States·Berklee College of Music

Terence Blanchard (b. 1962) — Trumpet, Synthesizer. Led Wandering Moon, Flow, Magnetic. Worked with Art Blakey, Lionel Loueke, Kendrick Scott.

After Art Blakey's band, he became the composer for Spike Lee's films for over thirty years. His trumpet tone is full and warm, and his expressiveness on ballads is exceptional. He holds two identities at once — jazz performer and film composer — and inhabits both fully.

Terence BlanchardTerence Blanchardテレンス・ブランチャード has scored most of Spike Lee's films — including Malcolm X, Jungle Fever, and 25th Hour. He remains one of jazz's rare figures who sustains a premier career in both film scoring and concert jazz at the highest level.

— Terence Blanchard, Wikipedia, 2024

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Since 1991's Jungle Fever, Terence BlanchardTerence Blanchardテレンス・ブランチャード has been Spike Lee's regular composer — a rare case of a jazz trumpeter establishing himself in Hollywood, with more than twenty scores to his name.

— Terence Blanchard, Longtime Composer For Spike Lee, On His First Oscar Nomination, NPR, 2019

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Terence Blanchard's opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones opened the Metropolitan Opera's 2021-22 season as the first work by a Black composer staged at the Met in its 138-year history; its recording later won the 2023 Grammy for Best Opera Recording.

— Terence Blanchard's Met Opera Debut Is A Singular Achievement And A Shared Success, NPR, 2021

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Terence Blanchard's albums

New York Second Line

Art Blakey · 1983

Magnetic

Terence Blanchard · 2013

Flow

Terence Blanchard · 2005

Wandering Moon

Terence Blanchard · 2000

Terence Blanchard has picked up multiple Oscar nominations for film scoring, but his career started as a 20-year-old trumpeter. He was tapped to replace Wynton Marsalis in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, appearing on the band's 1983 record New York Second Line.

Terence Blanchard's albums